129:Sunday 7th March 2010

Today I wanted to cure the power steering leak. I had a plan and needed to get a 10mm compression coupling from a DIY shop. Football match was a 1:30 kick off for my daughter's team, so that messed the day up quite a bit. They did win 7-0 so that was good. Picked up the coupling on the way to the match. The photo below shows the coupling I had before and you can see at the top between the 2 washers there is a tiny gap and this was where it was leaking from. ----This photo shows the pump with the Toyota pipe fitted. You can see this does not seal on the casting.

----I actually got the wrong end of the pipe and it does not seal on a small O Ring, but the fluted end you can see in the photo that seats inside the pump. I cut back some of the plastic coating on the probe pipe very carefully using a heat gun to soften it first so that I did not mark the metal pipe. I measured this and it was exactly 10mm. I did this before I bought the coupling of course!

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I cut the Toyota pipe and joined the coupling to the end of this. I then offered it up on the car to make sure the Probe pipe was in the correct orientation to join on.

----I then cut the Probe pipe and stripped back the plastic coating. I fitted the coupling on the Probe end. I moved the bracket for the pump mounts as I had to pull the pump up onto it and it was siting at a weird angle in the anti vibration mounts. I was not happy with this so I moved the bracket up and turned it over to put the bracket at the right height for the mounts not to be pulling so much. Then I mounted the pump and connected the pipes together. I ran the pump while putting fluid in the reservoir to get all the air out of the system. A few turns back and forth on the steering got the last of the air out and another top up revealed no leaks hurrah! The Probatron is now truly ready to go for Tuesday when I have the tax disc. I shall put it on charge tomorrow night so it is freshly charged for Tuesday morning when I get back and hopefully it can go out for it's maiden voyage. I will post a short video soon after that.

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About Me

I am an automotive Engineer with a background of electrical and electronic engineering.
My interest in converting cars to electric is to preserve modern classics by adding electric drive thus reducing maintenance and improving driving. I like being green, but prefer the thrill of the torque when driving electric cars. Most electric cars are either cheap and ugly or good looking but too expensive. I hope to fill some of the middle ground before the major manufacturers get their fingers in.